3D Printing News and Innovation

Combinatory Manufacturing is here!

Beginning next month we will enable Shop owners to offer complete and
final products to their customers. This will be done as a test for 2
months or as long as supplies last. We will offer silver plated earring hooks to the produced
earrings and a rubber necklace of 60 cm long with a nice bayonet lock to
any hanger (see picture below).

The bayonet lock:

To ensure your earrings and necklace hanger will include these
additional free add-ons every time they are ordered you will have to
take the following action:

1) send a mail to service@shapeways.com with the model’s name & ID, please put either earring or necklace in the subject line. 2) Shapeways will tag your model accordingly to ensure it will get the right treatment once ordered 3)
Once we start offering this service as a test run you will need to
clarify to your customers that they will receive a beautiful end
product.

note: You will receive no notification once your model is tagged.
Sending the mail will suffice. This service will start by July.

Design guidelines:

Earrings: – The inside diameter of the hole were the hooks will be attached to must be at least 1,3mm – The
hook will be attached to the hanger using a “o” split ring. This should be
taken into account for the orientation of the hanger.

The orientation of the ring will determine how the earring hangers will show in someones ears. I have tried to explain in below. Blue is your design. We will always attach the earring in this manner so please be aware of that.

Necklace: – The inside diameter of the hole were the necklace will be put trough must be at least 3.5mm.

I’d like to know exactly what I’m working with. What if we don’t want it to hang from the top but slightly lower, but don’t want to interfere with the rest of the ear ring? What’s the maximum clearance needed to close the o ring? Whats the maximum length of the hole for o ring to go through? The diameter must be at least 1.3 but an inch long tube with a 1.3 hole wouldn’t allow the o ring to be inserted and closed. But what if I make the hole a Taurus shaped hole, at the same diameter as the o ring but say cut in half. Would that work? Or would it have to be closer to a quarter circle? Would I be able to make an earring designed to go around the hook, and be assembled that way, in the email should we (more can we) include an image of how the hook should be attached? I know I’m being difficult, but you should expect that from me by now

Sizes in the sketch would help. Like in blueprints, full info to build the part, without doubts: radius, thickness, distances… for example, you mention min hole for the earring is 1.3 diameter but no info about max tube thickness (or in other words, diameter of the hole in the o-ring).

I sent you guys an email when you originally posted this and said the service would begin in JUNE, then ordered one of my pendants. I assume then that I WON’T be getting a necklace with it since you now say it will begin in JULY… This, then, would appear to show the problem with Shapeways NOT informing us somehow that our email has been received and/or the product now being available to order with the necklace…

You’re right, I noticed it just now, after I plucked the shopowner email from my junk box O:-)
[quote]
note: You will receive no notification once your model is tagged.
Sending the mail will suffice. This service will start by [b]June[/b].
[/quote]

Good point,
I’ll look into the option to setup a gallery of all models that can be ordered as a final product.
Once you have submitted your model via the mail it can be made available in this gallery. this will inform you the model is added.

Also, for the *Necklace*, as seen on the picture above. one half of the lock (steel cylinder) needs to pass through that hole. The shortest half of the cylinder is 10mm long. So if your hole is bent (like a truncated torus shape) make sure that a cylinder of 3x10mm can go through it with some clearance, for our guys to happily put it through for you.

Man I didn’t think of that one . I was thinking more of the possibilities of using the hook in my design where the necklace isn’t as easy to do. can the necklace have multiple holes for the string to pass through?

Monday the 16th of August is your last chance to order models with free included earrings or necklaces (or ‘Combinatory Manufacturing’ as we call it). You’ll find more info on this on the Shapeways Blog. Shapeways ran the option as a test to see it’s p